The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A computing device such as a desktop or laptop computer, a tablet computer, a mobile phone, or any other device that processes data may receive messages pushed or pulled from various sources. The computing device may also generate its own internal messages, such as when battery power is low. A user of the computing device may be notified of these messages in various ways, e.g., in a manner meant to avoid overly distracting the user from the task at hand. For example, a notification of receipt of an incoming email may be temporarily displayed at a periphery of a computer screen, or on a locked screen of a mobile phone, and then may fade away. As another example, an incoming message such as a stock quotation or weather report may be displayed via a “widget” persistently rendered on the periphery or on a locked screen. When multiple messages are received and/or generated, a user may be overwhelmed with notifications. The user could miss a critical message when its corresponding notification is lost among other notifications of less critical messages. Moreover, a constant stream of notifications may distract the user from the task at hand, which in some scenarios, such as where a user is operating a vehicle, could prove hazardous to the user or others.